Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Amid continued controversy over Qatar’s successful bid for
the 2022 World Cup, migrant labor rights rather than the propriety of the Qatar
bid campaign or women’s and fan rights could prove the monkey wrench that
produces social change in the conservative Gulf state.

At a time that Qatar and other Gulf states are rallying the
wagons against the threat posed by the Middle East and North Africa’s clamor
for more transparent and accountable rule and greater freedom, the
International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) says it has wrangled a promise
from Acting Qatari Labor Minister Nasser bin Abdulla Alhumidi to allow the
creation of free and independent trade unions.

The ITUC, which has 175 members in 153 countries, has called
for a boycott of the 2022 World Cup if Qatar fails to adopt international labor
standards for its huge army of some 1.2 million foreign workers who it says toil
in circumstances of virtual serfdom.

The group, which has already launched a low-key, online boycott
campaign, exploited its rare presence in Qatar for a climate change conference
to press its demands, which so far had largely fallen on deaf ears. Foreign
workers are building billions of dollars of infrastructure in preparation for
the World Cup.

"After a
full and frank discussion, Qatar's labour minister assured me that if workers
want to establish a union he will make sure that those who decide to join a
union will not be punished. We will test him on that," ITUC General
Secretary Sharan Burrow said in a statement.
In a separate email, Ms. Burrow added: “Lots of workers want to organize and join unions. “We are putting the planning in place to have a presence in Doha, the
first step is to build a construction union to engage with major companies
building World Cup stadium and infrastructure under contract from the FIFA 2022
supreme committee.”

Ms. Burrow
said she had also met also met with the Qatari
Minister for Social Affairs, the Qatar 2022 Supreme Committee and the Qatar
National Human Rights Committee.

The litmus test for the ITUC is likely to be whether
Qatar ratifies and implements International Labor Organization (ILO) standards,
which include freedom association and would mean that the promised union would
be able to engage in collective bargaining.

Qatari efforts to fend off an international boycott have so
far fallen short of the confederation’s demands. In the latest effort to
mollify the unions, Qatar last weekend allowed a rare demonstration in favor of
foreign labor rights. Union members wore masks
of two Nepali workers during the rally to highlight the abuses of guest workers
in the Gulf state.

The ITUC has repeatedly
employed Nepali workers, among whom the suicide rate is high, as its case
study. “More people will die building the World Cup infrastructure than players
will play on the field,” Ms. Burrow said.

Lack of democratic freedoms
is a concern not only for unskilled workers but also professionals and
businessmen. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently quoted a Turkish
expert describing the requirement for a Qatari sponsor to work in the country.

“If you have a work permit
and you want to leave the country, you need your sponsor to give you written
permission. If your sponsor dies, his son inherits that right,” Mr. Friedman
quoted the expert, whose sponsor’s son is very young, as saying. “If he says I
cannot leave, I cannot leave. I do business but I have no rights at all. ... We
joke that we are ‘modern slaves’ there. And this country is trying to bring democracy
to Syria?” the expert said referring to Qatar’s support for rebels fighting the
regime of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.

The rally followed moves by Qatar to ensure that companies
enforce safety and security standards, pay workers on time and ensure that
companies properly house foreign workers. Construction industry sources said
Qatar had reduced the number of workers allowed to live in one room from eight
to four and that it was building a compound for the laborers with modern
residential units as well as shops and cinemas.

The ITUC has rejected these moves, asserting they fail to
meet international labor standards and should be part of collective bargaining.

Allowing the rally and the promise to permit the creation of
unions contrasts starkly with a crackdown in Qatar and other Gulf states on
critics and stricter control of the media and the Internet. A Qatari poet,
Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami, was last month sentenced to life in prison in
what legal and human rights activists said was a “grossly unfair trial that
flagrantly violates the right to free expression” on charges of “inciting the
overthrow of the ruling regime.”

Mr. Al-Ajami’s crime appears to be a poem he wrote last year
entitled Tunisian Jasmine celebrating the overthrow of Tunisian president Zine
el Abedine Ben Ali as well his earlier recitation of poems that included
passages disparaging senior members of Qatar's ruling family.

Qatar has positioned itself as a frontline supporter of
anti-autocratic popular revolts in the Middle East and North Africa and its
state-owned Al Jazeera television network as a path breaker for freedom of the media
in the region. Mr. Al-Ajami’s sentencing in a two-line written judgment was not
reported by Al Jazeera.

"Qatar, after all it’s posturing as a supporter of
freedom, turns out to be determined to keep its citizens quiet.Ibn al-Dheeb's alleged mockery of Qatar's
rulers can hardly compare to the mockery this judgment makes of the country's
posture as a regional center for media freedom," saidHuman Right Watch’s Joe Stork.

A draft media law approved by the Qatari Cabinet would
prohibit publishing or broadcasting information that would "throw
relations between the state and the Arab and friendly states into
confusion" or "abuse the regime or offend the ruling family or cause
serious harm to the national or higher interests of the state." Violators
would face stiff financial penalties of up to 1 million Qatari Riyals ($275,000).

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James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile